Atletico Madrid vs Astana Betting Tips

The Spaniards could do with the win too after a surprise 2-1 home defeat to Benfica in their last group game, which itself followed a league defeat to Villarreal. They’ve responded pretty well though with a draw in the Madrid derby and a 2-0 win at Real Sociedad at the weekend.

Obviously they should be far too strong for Astana but Diego Simeone’s side do at times make hard work of opposition they should be beating comfortably and unlike Real Madrid and Barcelona they very rarely rack up high-scoring wins. They are very well organised and efficient and should have no problems winning the game but that doesn’t necessarily mean the floodgates will open.

Astana have tended to be very defensive in their away games in the Champions League this season and there have been under 2.5 goals in all 4 of their European trips so far and they are yet to win, even in the early qualifying rounds. They were beaten 2-0 in Lisbon by Benfica in their opening group game and it seems certain that they will come to the Vicente Calderon and try to park a large Kazakh bus in front of their goal.

Atleti are still searching for their best side this season after quite a few comings and goings over the summer and we may see a few changes from them here with a big game against Valencia to come this weekend. They’ve been generally speaking getting the job done without playing at their best so far.

Only 3 of their 9 games this season have had over 2.5 goals in them and none have had more than 3. There is no major advantage in them securing a really heavy win here so they won’t gamble anything late on to run up a scoreline so consider backing there to be under 2.5 goals in this game at 11/10.

It’s very hard to see them not winning though and they will be keen to get back to winning ways at the Vicente Calderon where they have an excellent record in this competition. A repeat kind of performance to the one we saw in their first game at Galatasaray could be in store here, with Atleti working up a 2 goal advantage and then seeing out the game in 2nd gear.

Therefore consider backing Atletico to win 2-0 at 7/2.